With all of the noise on social media, it can get a little overwhelming. As a real estate agent, you’re probably thinking no one is going to put down a large deposit on a house because they saw it on Twitter. However, that’s not the case.
According to the National Association of REALTORS Research Department, 44% of homeowners use the internet to find potential houses. With 76.8 million millennials using social media and the biggest chunk of new homebuyers being millennials, it’s easy to see why real estate agents would want to be on social media.
Before you can get started using social media, you need to define your goals. What do you hope to accomplish with social media? Do you want to increase brand awareness or increase your web traffic? Are you looking to generate more contact form submissions or produce more property enquiries or sales?
Here are six ways you can use social media as a real estate agent:
1. Showcase Your Properties with Video and Images
Video is becoming more and more important in social media. According to Statista, in 2018, 85% of internet users in America watched video content monthly on their devices. The brain can also process images 60,000 times faster than text. Internet users are looking for images and videos on social media. Why not capitalize on that to showcase your properties?
2. Share Content for a Local Audience
People who are looking at houses in your area are likely to be living in the same area or planning on moving to the area. You may want to share content that would be interesting to local people like local events and news or information on local neighborhoods. You can post pictures of local street art or local artists who are busking or selling their painting. You can talk about local festivals and concerts. The possibilities are endless.
3. Participate in Online Local Communities
Every social media platform has groups that you can join. And chances are, there is a group for people in your area. Join these groups, but don’t just try to sell to them. Participate in local conversations that people in your area are having online. Become a trusted and authentic voice in the community, and people will be much more likely to consider your properties.
4. Use Hashtags Throughout Your Content
Whether you’re on Instagram, Twitter, or Facebook, hashtags are how people find new content. One great way to use hashtags is to weave them into your sentences. This is just a small change you can make to the content you’re already posting, and you will be surprised how many new people will find you because of this.
5. Use Pinterest To Pin Photos of Your Properties
Pinterest is a great platform for anything that’s visual. You can create your own boards or pin images to boards that are already popular. It will be all too easy for new people to come across your pins. The audience on Pinterest tends to be a lot of millennials and 47% of the people who use Pinterest are likely to have a major life event occur in their lives.
6. Schedule Your Social Media Posts
Don’t waste too much of your time on social media. While it’s good to interact with people occasionally on these platforms, you can also use a scheduling tool like Hootsuite to schedule out your posts so you won’t have to be on the platform 24/7. All you’ll need to do is spend a few hours on Monday morning planning out and scheduling your posts for the week.
If you really don’t have time for social media, you can always hire a social media manager to manage your posts for you. Whether you decide to use a marketing agency, a tool like Hootsuite or post your own social media posts, follow the tips above, and you’ll be sure to have an online following in no time.
